Tag Archives: registration

So this last week has been very busy, very productive, and very quiet on this blog. I apologize for that last bit, but time has been sparse, and we were always on the verge of something, so I kept pushing back updates since something bigger and better was coming. That’s still the case – we still have more to do, but I’m going to update anyway.

I should start last week, when we brought the bus by the DMV to see if we could get it registered. From all of the research I did online and over the phone, it seemed like there were no requirements for a converted school bus to be registered as an RV, so we rolled into the inspection lane to see what we could get done. Unfortunately, we showed up just as they were closing, because apparently they don’t stay open as late as the main DMV building. Oops. I managed to briefly talk to the inspectors who were there, and they told me that there was indeed an inspection required, and it needed to be “habitable.” One of the requirements of habitable was a “vented stove,” which both the inspectors agreed on. They couldn’t give us a complete list of what we needed, only that it had to be “habitable.”

A vented stove was something that was not going to happen on the bus if we could help it – cooking outside is far cheaper, easier, and practical for our purposes. We went into the main building to see if anyone could supply us with a list of the requirements that would make the bus habitable, but no one had a clue – it’s not a very common question. We finally found someone in the Commercial Vehicle Saftey department, and he supplied us with a list of what we needed, which mirrored lists I had seen elsewhere.

We spent this week trying to meet those requirements, and when we brought the bus to the DMV earlier today, they deemed it habitable (though they didn’t seem to care about that list). They had a slight issue with our veggie system, and didn’t really know what to make of it. It turns out the guy who would know doesn’t work there anymore, so they put in a call, and we waited. We made Tang in a coffee can from DMV bathroom water. We ordered a pizza. And waited some more. Eventually the call was returned, and now we know what we need to change for the veggie system, so we’ll be making changes over the weekend and registering on Monday.

Other things we’ve been up to: enjoying attention from localpress, a new snazzy paint job which I’ll show off tomorrow, plumbing installed, electrical installed, and Ned’s blog launched. He’ll be writing about the trip at that website for the duration of the summer, so I highly recommend subscribing.

At the moment, it looks like we shall leave Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Well, sort of. I don’t usually get very stressed about things, but today was annoying.

I hate the DMV. A lot. When I called the seller a while back I determined that I wouldn’t need any temp tags or the like because the plates on it would be good. I only needed them to be good long enough to get me home, where I would register it in CT as an RV. But the insurance isn’t cooperating, and it turns out that we’ll need to get temp tags after all. The problem there is that the documents needed to get temp tags are all in Minnesota. So I called him up again today (he’s been really helpful through all this), and he’ll be overnighting what we need so we can get it in time to get tags and insurance.

I’d like to say, that I’m perfectly comfortable driving back unlicensed, unregistered, and uninsured. My folks however, are not. That is where most of this comes from. I know they’re looking out for me/them, but all that red tape is absurdly annoying. Oh well.